Midnight Moonrising (Moonrising #2)(23)

His mouth brushed over mine greedily, his tongue teasing my lips and seeking entrance. I gave it to him without delay and kissed him back feverishly.

Phoenix broke away from my lips, his breathing labored and his eyes drifting shut as he let his forehead rest against mine. "Mena, have you ever felt something you can't explain with words? Have you ever wanted something so badly and wondered why it never existed before you found it? That is what you are to me. You are everything I never knew I wanted."

I grinned. "I bet you say that to all the girls."

His expression turned solemn as those hypnotizing eyes opened and bore into mine. "I have never wasted my breath to tell any woman such words. You are the only person that has ever mattered to me before now, Mena. Believe that."

It should have been difficult for me to believe anything anybody said after what I'd been through with Marc, but for some reason I believed Phoenix. Maybe it was because he had lived up to his every word since we had met; I didn't know, but I did know I trusted him. "I do, Phoenix."

He smiled. "Where have you been all my life?"

I laughed. "Not alive, for the most part—"

A deafening explosion went off and the windows shattered inward, sending a hot gust of wind, glass and other debris into my bedroom. I wasn't sure if the blast knocked me to the floor or if it had been Phoenix, because he was covering every exposed part of my body with his when I looked up.

"Stay down!" he shouted, when I tried to move him off me.

"The hell with that!" I shoved him hard with my palm and knocked him against the footboard of the bed. "Sorry," I said as I jumped to my feet, "I have to make sure everyone is okay."

Phoenix reached the bedroom door before me, but he didn't try to hold me hostage so that I wouldn't be in danger; he opened it and grabbed my hand before running out into the hallway and down the grand staircase.

Shouts from my pack members issued from outside the open front door, and Phoenix slowed before cautiously leading me outside.

With so much going on, I couldn't make out what the guys were shouting as they ran toward the fire-engulfed car. My heart stopped beating in my chest, and then kicked into overdrive once I realized what they were trying to do. There was someone in the car, but the heat was too intense for them to get any closer than twenty feet of the wreckage.

"Oh, my God! No!" I gasped and tried to run toward the blazing vehicle, but Phoenix grabbed me around the waist and pulled me to him, his arms tightening when I tried to kick free of the embrace. I reached toward the burning pile of metal, but couldn't see anything except blinding light through my tears. Finally getting enough oxygen into my lungs so I could speak, I opened my mouth and screamed, "Katie!"





V''''V





Alex





"Rhodes, where are you?" Alex heard through the receiving end of his cell phone.

He jogged up the remaining steps of the precinct and nodded a thank you at the smiling woman holding the door open for him. "I'm on my way up to talk to you, Chief."

"Don't bother. We just had a call come in. Someone set off a bomb in a vehicle at a residence. There was a fatality."

The phone in Alex's hands cracked under the sudden pressure of his fingers gripping it a bit too tightly. "I've got enough on my plate right now. Give it to Thompson."

There was a brief pause before the Chief replied quietly. "It's Marc Hoke's address."

Alex's brain stopped functioning properly and, for a second, he wasn't quite sure why he was standing in the middle of the staircase at the police department. "Excuse me? What?" he managed to get out, and turned back for the door, breaking into a full-out run after he got his mind and his feet on the same page. "I just left Mena's house. There has to be a mistake."

"Dispatch called it in six minutes ago. This is your case. It looks like whoever was out to get Marc, has it in for his pretty little wife, too."

"Was it her?" Alex shouted into the phone as he jumped in the Jeep and started the engine. "Chief, please tell me it wasn't Mena in the car," he said, and let his head fall against the steering wheel as his heart threatened to burst in his chest. If it was her, he wouldn't physically be able to drive to her home, much less continue with the case. He'd known better than to leave her there!


"I'm not sure," the Chief replied. "A neighbor made the call; said there was a crowd of people around, trying to get someone out of her neighbor's car that had just blown up. Whoever was in it didn't make it."

"Damn it!" Alex shouted as he threw his back against the seat and punched the steering column, and then he shoved the gearshift in first and stomped the gas pedal to the floorboard.





Chapter 15



Mena





"Mena?" Phoenix said in a low voice. "Mena, the cell phone in your pocket is ringing. Would you like me to take the call for you?" He didn't wait for me to reply. Phoenix reached in and took my cell from my pocket then walked away as he answered it.

Sirens blared as emergency vehicles approached at a rapid pace, but I couldn't seem to pull myself out of shock long enough to realize that they were coming to my home because someone had blown my car up with one of my friends in it.